Things to highlight about the new industry:

The main emblem of Industry 4.0 is the cyber-physical system, as it will be

the base of the new production system, which will be controlled and
monitored wirelessly by artificial intelligence software.

The cyber-physical system of the fourth industrial revolution is a very

complex “whole” made up of multiple technologies (developed and / or under
development), however, there are certain characteristic aspects that deserve to
be highlighted:

*Automation.
*Digital information: information will be extracted from the physical
industrial world to be converted into the binary language (1s and 0s), and then
build the digital industrial world.
*Interconnectivity: data will be stored by using cloud computing, to which
customers (and other authorized people) will have access to through the
Internet of things.
*Internet of things: any object can be  remotely monitored, because it will be
wirelessly connected to the internet, constantly transmitting information.
*Cybersecurity: data from the cloud and the Internet of things will require
special security protocols and encryptions, as they will be susceptible to
cybercrimes, such as theft of industrial information.
*Big data: it’s a computer analysis technique that allows processing abundant
amounts of information.
*Augmented reality: in Industry 4.0, simulations will allow testing alternative
production processes, showing their real impact.

Advantages and disadvantages

Despite the emphasis on the productive benefits of Industry 4.0, the truth is
that behind the innovative veil there are significant contrasts.

The emerging and experimental technologies of Industry 4.0 will cause

profound changes in society, so they will need to be adjusted and normalized
by new labor laws.

To understand this new industrial reality, we present both its main advantages
and disadvantages:

Advantages of industry 4.0

•Increased quality and quantity of products, due to automation.

•Reduction of expenses, time, errors, and production risks.
•Increased personnel safety.
•Instant access to digital information.
•Development of a new dimension of business competitiveness, to meet new
demanding consumer needs.
•Personalized customer service.
•Efficient management and use of resources to reduce the negative impact the
industry may have on the environment.

Disadvantages of industry 4.0

•Large initial investment.

•The constant progress of technology requires the company to continually
update, which tends to be unsustainable for most organizations.
•It will cause a significant economic gap between companies that have
adapted and those that haven’t to the industry 4.0 model.
•Requires specialized personnel for the analysis and monitoring of automated
processes.
•Increase in unemployment in the short and medium-term, since automated
machines will displace people from their jobs in factories, etc…
•Absolute dependence on technology.

Smart industry | What Industry 4.0 wants to achieve

The main aim of Industry 4.0 is to create industrial warehouses and intelligent
logistics centres that maximize production benefits and minimize losses and
expenses.
Basically what Industry 4.0 is looking for is to automate the industrial sector
by digitizing production chains and storage, using advanced data processing
devices, intelligent software, etc.

Digitization and automation are an integration of technologies, which provide

greater flexibility to production and allow customers to customize products
according to their needs. In addition, it will allow a minimum level of storage.

Also, Industry 4.0 seeks to introduce new industrial management techniques,

which replace the already obsolete traditional techniques, in order to manage
and analyze more information.

With Industry 4.0 simulations it will be possible to mould realistic situations

to test different improvements and alternatives in production.

Finally, a 4.0 industrial warehouse will be able to find the ideal way to save
energy and material resources, in favor of the environment.
The pros and cons of the 4th industrial revolution

What better way to start this new century than to go over the pros and cons of
the 4th Industrial Revolution. The 4th industrial revolution is a term coined by
Professor Klaus Schwab. He is the founder and Executive chairman of the
World Economic Forum, so he has some good credentials. He described the
4th industrial revolution as a “current and developing environment in which
disruptive technologies and trends such as the Internet of Things, robotics,
virtual reality and Artificial Intelligence are changing the way people live and
work”. So this is the era of AI and machine learning, genome editing, 3D
printing, Internet of Things, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, and
much more. And we’re not talking about the future here. These things are
currently affecting our personal and work life and they are ever evolving.
Today we are living on the cusp of this Forth Industrial Revolution. Which is
also referenced as Industry 4.0 or 4IR. 

The pros of the 4th industrial revolution

1.Higher productivity

This happens with each industrial revolution and apparently productivity of

each industrial era goes up 50 times over the preceding age. In the next 5-10
years, it’s estimated that productivity will increase by 5-8%. This is mainly
because of increased automation.

2. Improved quality of life

Technology has made possible new products and services that increase the
efficiency and pleasure of our personal lives. One Channel CEO, Bernard
Ford, exemplifies this by mentioning how “ordering a cab, booking a flight,
buying a product, making a payment, listening to music, watching a film,
playing a game” and even controlling the lights and temperature in our homes
can be done remotely. Not to mention that soon we’ll have fully autonomous
cars, or maybe we already do – depending when you’re reading this, and who
knows what else.

3. New markets

Klaus Schwab mentioned that “a fusion of technologies that is blurring the

lines between physical, digital, and biological spheres” will create new
markets and growth opportunities. It will blend improvements from several
fields, that were often previously separated, to create a new product or a new
service. Not only there will be more knowledge workers, but knowledge
workers in new fields.

4. Lower barrier to entrepreneurship

We can already see that with new technologies such as 3D printing for
prototyping, the barriers between inventors and markets are reduced.
Entrepreneurs can now establish their companies and test various products
with lower start-up costs without the traditional time and cost constraints
often encountered with traditional prototyping methods. The typical barriers
to entry are removed from the entrepreneurship equation.

The cons of the 4th industrial revolution

1. Inequality

It is all about who gets the benefits of these technologies and of the results
they help produce. The reality is that the largest beneficiaries tend to be the
providers of intellectual and physical capital (shareholders, investors, and
innovators). Technology is one of the main reasons why incomes have
stagnated, or even decreased, for a majority of the population in high-income
countries. Shocking, isn’t it? The demand for highly skilled workers has
increased while the demand for workers with less education and lower skills
has decreased and the part in between them will start to wear thin. So this
could also lead to potential job losses. Not to even mention that for
developing countries there are technological and infrastructure challenges and
skill challenges that are not easy to overcome.

2. Cybersecurity risk

When everything is connected, the risk of hacking data and tampering with it
or using it for malicious intent is now more prevalent. It is not as contained as
before. It’s more and more frequent that we hear the dreaded news of a new
data security breach. So often, in fact, that it does not shock us anymore. Not
to mention that it challenges the very nature of identity and privacy,
especially with the increased use of data analytics and machine learning.

3. Core industries disruptions

We see this already. Taxis are competing against Uber and Lyft, Traditional
television and cinema compete with Netlfix and YouTube, the hotel industry
with AirBnB and any store is competing against Amazon. This has
ramifications in the type of services being offered and the model through
which they are offered as well as the jobs associated with them.

4. Ethical issues

With improved AI, genetic engineering, and increased automation, there are
new ethical concerns and questions of morality that already differ greatly
from individual to individual. With access to more data about an individual
and a group of individuals, the risk of using it for personal gain and
manipulation is even greater. I think we all remember Cambridge Analytica
data scandal in early 2018 when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica had
harvested the personal data of millions of peoples’ Facebook profiles without
their consent and used it for political advertising purposes. Plus, this is only
an example of those data missuses that we know of.

Conclusion
So here we are on that edge of the 4th industrial revolution that radically
impacts our daily lives. It can be an era of economic and knowledge growth
and improvements in the way we live and work, but we also need to be weary
of its disruption potential and find ways to mitigate these risks.